The Progress of Ankylostomiasis in Cornwall

Extract

Ankylostomiasis was first discovered in men working in Cornish mines in October, 1902 (this Journal, Vol. III. p. 95), though there had been many cases of illness clearly referable to this cause for some eight years previously. The number of men who were too ill to do their ordinary work was greater about two years before the cause of “Dolcoath anaemia” was identified. These men had either stopped at home or had been employed on the surface instead of underground: in this way they had avoided further infections, and in many cases had progressed towards a spontaneous cure. At the time therefore of our first enquiry the number of sick men was less than it had been. Anaemic miners were, however, still very numerous and, without anything like an exhaustive search among the 750 underground hands at Dolcoath mine, we found 14 men with less than 50 p.c. haemoglobin and 19 more with less than 75 p.c. The general pallor prevalent among the men on looking at a shift as a whole was very striking, and complaints of shortness of breath on climbing the ladders were frequent. The disease, in short, was at that time a meterial hindrance in carrying on the work of the mine.